This book focuses on the legal aspects of virtual currencies from the perspective of financial and economic law. It establishes a typology of virtual currencies and assesses whether they can be considered as money. The author analyzes whether the EU legal frameworks on electronic money, payment services, anti-money laundering, and markets in financial instruments can be applied to virtual currencies.

This book three legal instruments proposed by the European Commission in the context of its Digital Single Market Strategy, which has recently become one of its priorities. The proposed instruments are: (1) a directive for the supply of digital content; (2) a directive for the online and other distance sales of goods; and (3) a regulation on cross-border portability of online content services in the internal market.

There is an increasing debate on the way in which the EU has developed and what it must look like in the future. This debate includes a discussion on one of the core aspects of European integration: at which level should the rules be set and who decides where the authority to do so should lie? Private law has an important role to play in this discussion. Many private law rules touch on the core of the internal market as they serve to foster tr...

This book explores the international jurisprudence on Article 79 of the 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), which is, perhaps, one of its most contentious provisions. The author’s premise is that Article 79—which concerns exemptions for contractual non-performance due to an “impediment” beyond a party’s control—should be interpreted autonomously, that is, as an international norm, without r...

This is a book on comparative law and legal change. With a focus on corporate law and the law of personal property, it reviews the current state of the comparative debate on the evolution of law and seeks to establish new perspectives to explain the mechanism of legal reception.

In recent years, EU consumer law has been subject to spectacular decisions by the European Court of Justice, with important consequences for the private law of Member States. Currently, it is under scrutiny by the EC Commission, which has just published a proposal for the revision of important aspects of the EU consumer law acquis. The authors have taken a broad horizontal approach at the European acquis, thereby reflecting on the history, th...

The selected cases in this book on consumer law are without exception landmark decisions. The authors approach the cases – which generally have been commented upon quite extensively in legal doctrine already – from a novel and personal perspective.